This is my FOURTH post in the #Project14Lists series, hosted by Shealea at That Bookshelf Bitch! You can find more information here, as well as a thread of my posts for the event here.

2019’s Reading Resolutions & Goals

I have quite a few goals for my reading habits in 2019, so let’s skip the preface and jump right in!

1. STICK TO MY CHALLENGES

I didn’t put much value on the challenges I signed up for in 2018 and now, at the end of the year, I’m a little sad I didn’t focus on them more! For 2019, I have a pretty fun idea to help me stick to these that you all will be able to watch the progress of—more info coming soon!

2. MORE CHALLENGES & READATHONS

I’d like to sign up for more of them in 2019! Not an unreasonable amount, but in 2018, I skipped most of the ones I wanted to join because I had too many strict TBRs and ARCs to kick back and focus on readathon challenges. Which leads me to my next point…

3. LESS REVIEW COPIES—NO ARGUING!

The biggest issue with this is that I have to learn how to say “no” to requests without feeling guilty. The second part of this is going to be a review copy limit. I think this will be based on a monthly-release limit (i.e., “I have __ ARCs releasing in April, so I can’t accept/request ANYTHING else”), with exceptions only being made for MAJORLY anticipated releases, and things that are REALLY fast reads.

4. LESS BUYING, MORE BORROWING

It sunk in to me recently, while counting my shelves, that at my current hauling rate, I’ll never read everything I own, and that’s not a great feeling! I want to stop purchasing and start using the library, with the following means to help motivate myself to stick to my goals:

if I borrow a book and rate it 4+ stars, it can (but doesn’t have to) go on a “to buy” list, which I’ll allow myself to buy 1-2 books per month from

everything I want to buy will go on wishlists, where I can keep an eye out for random sales/decide if I really need to own it

no more purchasing books in series that I’m not ready to read (i.e., buying book 3 when I haven’t read book 1)

more ebooks—they’re frequently SO much cheaper and they don’t take up space!

This resolution is being listed with funny timing, because if you missed the announcement on Twitter, I was hired for a children’s librarian position yesterday! I start in January. 🙂 I think being in a library for work several days a week will help motivate me to borrow books instead of buying them!

5. LESS BUDDY READS

This one is depressing, but I did way too many this year and have gotten overwhelmed so many times. There were several months where I didn’t have the chance to “mood read” a single book all month because I was so occupied between ARCs and buddy reads. 😭 So, sadly, I’ll be severely limiting my buddy reads in 2019—probably only allowing myself 2-3 per month.

6. 1 “BIG” BOOK PER MONTH

I have a lot of books that I never get around to because they’re long and/or intimidating, but I really want to make time for them, so in 2019, I’ll read at least one “big” (600+ pages) book per month.

7. 1 UNREAD TITLE FROM A BELOVED AUTHOR PER MONTH

There are so many authors I adore, but haven’t caught up on their backlists yet (like Jay Kristoff’s Lotus War trilogy, or a ton of Schwab’s works), so in 2019, I’m prioritizing putting at least 1 unread book from a previously loved author on each monthly TBR list.

Do you have any reading resolutions for the new year? Let me know in the comments!

Congrats on becoming a Children’s Librarian! 😀 In some ways it helps with the borrowing, but also increasing how many children’s books you want to read haha. Next year reading more children’s books is going on my list.
Also, those dramatic picture books– I’ve destroyed my heart at work reading new picture books to put on the shelves.

Thank you so much, Sionna! Haha I can totally see how it would increase my TBR even more. 😂
Oh my gosh, I bet. For my multicultural children’s lit class over the summer, we had to read a handful of really “tough topic” picture books, and I remember one of them had me just CRYING over how sad and sweet it was.

Thank youuuu! Oh my gosh, I can only imagine (RE: #3). I have so many things I want to read in 2019 that *aren’t* ARCs, and while I’m so so grateful to have the chance to read them, at the same time, I’m so ready to focus on my backlist.

We definitely have some points in common! But some are the contrary. For example, I would totally love to do some buddy reads.

Libraries here sucks, but I want to buy less and read all the unread novels I already own. I want to stick to my book ban plan, of buying a book every six reads.
I should go for less reviews copies too, since I’ve got many but didn’t manage to read because of stress or many other things.

I’m curious to see your 2019 project! I usually don’t take part to challenges but this year I may try something

You should totally do some buddy reads in the new year! They’re so much fun, I just got a bit overwhelmed, sadly.

Aw, sorry to hear about libraries there! 😦 I think it gets too easy for us in the US to forget how lucky we are with a lot of the library systems here. Mine isn’t perfect, but it has enough options to keep me busy!

Do I smell the possibility of challenge-pages on your blog in the future? [Or past if you already posted about it and I haven’t gotten to it yet, haha.]

I want to do more readathon challenges as well! Although I don’t have any clue yet as how I’ll be doing that with.. you know.. little wiggle and all. We’ll have to see about that. At least I know it’d be futile to try and clear entire reading bingos from now on, haha.

I’m still laughing about you changing your NG to librarian status and now having more ARC’s, haha. I’m PRETTY sure you’ll be struggling with your ARC-goal. Just saying. 😛

Haha! I actually have one big challenge page where I’m posting updates, but I haven’t updated it yet since we’re only a little over a week into the year. I think I might try to update that by the end of this week.

Right~! Hopefully you’ll still be able to, but if not, there’s always 2020. ♥ It gets a little easier once they get a teensy bit older, but then when they’re toddlers, it gets harder again 😂 I laugh a little when I think back to how everyone told me the newborn stage would be the hardest, because that was when I had the most free time (and got the most sleep)! Maybe I was just lucky and Isaac was unusually easy as a tiny little, but he was the chillest newborn… ever? Now he’s just crazy as hell. :’)

I’m trying to update as I go but it feels like I have a LOT of things to update after finishing a book? The pages, the posts, the spreadsheet.. Let’s hope I can keep it up throughout the year. :’)

Exactly! Oh, I know. Gust’s sister has a toddler and comparing that to his godchild is.. SUCH a difference. He is a toddler from hell though. So spoiled and egocentric and.. we’re starting to think he’s a tiny bit autistic? Time’ll tell.
I just hope our little wiggle will be less active outside of me compared to INSIDE of me because that’d be freaking great. <.<

Same, I feel you. I think I’m about to switch to one all-encompassing spreadsheet I’ll update daily that will be private (read: “messy” and “won’t make any sense to anyone but me” hahaha), and then at the end of each week, I’ll actually go through and update all of the public sheets and challenge pages. I feel like, just based on what I did with my reading updates last year, it’ll work way better for me? Fingers crossed 😬🤞